Baroness Louise Casey, the architect of the bombshell grooming gangs review, has admitted she felt she had 'let victims down' and that there is still a 'sense of denial' over the ethnicity and religion of perpetrators. Speaking at the Hay Festival on Sunday, the crossbench peer, who investigated child protection failures in Rotherham, South Yorkshire more than a decade ago, expressed disappointment when the issue 'hit national headlines' again last year.
Background of the Investigation
Baroness Casey led an investigation into Rotherham Council in 2015 after a separate report found more than 1,400 children were sexually exploited by gangs of mainly Asian males between 1997 and 2013. She concluded there had been institutional failures in investigating the systematic rape, trafficking, and intimidation of children. Last year, the Government called her back to carry out a national audit, which found a lack of data on the ethnicity and nationality of sex offenders in grooming gangs was 'a major failing over the last decade or more'. The audit listed 12 recommendations, including a national inquiry.
Baroness Casey's Remarks
On Sunday, Baroness Casey said: 'Last year, when the grooming gangs thing hit national headlines again, and I got a call about it, I was kind of thinking, what's going on here? I was very disappointed, to put it mildly, I was really upset that in the intermediate 10 years (since Rotherham), not enough had changed. Victims still weren't believed, people didn't gather the right evidence, everybody was still squeamish over looking at both religion and ethnicity of perpetrators. I felt there was a sense of denial and I felt possibly, personally, that I had let those victims down… That is never, ever going to happen again.'
Findings of the National Audit
Last year's long-awaited review found councils, police forces, and the Home Office repeatedly 'shied away' from dealing with 'uncomfortable' questions about the ethnicity of rapists preying on thousands of vulnerable girls. Despite years of warnings, Baroness Casey said the quality of data collected at a national level remained 'woeful and a dereliction of public duty'. With ethnicity recorded in only a third of cases, it was impossible to be certain about patterns of offending at a national level.
In Rotherham, an investigation by the National Crime Agency found that two-thirds of suspects were of Pakistani heritage, despite accounting for just 4 per cent of the local population. The report also examined a dozen major live police operations into grooming gangs and found a 'significant proportion' of suspects are asylum seekers or were born abroad.
National Inquiry Ordered
Lady Casey's dire assessment forced Labour into ordering a national inquiry, something Keir Starmer previously rejected. The inquiry, chaired by Baroness Longfield of Godalming, the former children's commissioner, was set up in response to the recommendation from Baroness Casey's National Audit on Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse. It has secured £65 million in government funding and will conclude no later than March 2029. Local investigations will begin in Oldham, Greater Manchester, and officials will have the power to compel witnesses to give evidence.
Baroness Casey said: 'It's like a war of attrition, every single recommendation… I'm like a dog with a bone, I just won't let go.'
